Gregor Mendel: Experience

Gregor Mendel was Silesian scientist and Augustinian friar. Explore interesting quotes on experience.
Gregor Mendel: 22   quotes 4   likes

“The striking-regularity with which the same hybrid forms always reappeared whenever fertilisation took place between the same species induced further experiments to be undertaken”

Gregor Mendel book Experiments in plant-hybridisation

Introductory paragraph
Experiments in plant-hybridisation (1865)
Context: Experience of artificial fertilisation, such as is effected with ornamental plants in order to obtain new variations in colour, has led to the experiments which will here be discussed. The striking-regularity with which the same hybrid forms always reappeared whenever fertilisation took place between the same species induced further experiments to be undertaken, the object of which was to follow up the developments of the hybrids in their progeny.

“It concerns the opinion of Naudin and Darwin that a single pollen grain does not suffice for fertilization of the ovule. I used Mirabilis Jalappa for an experimental plant, as Naudin had done; the result of my experiment is, however, completely different. From fertilizations with single pollen grains, I obtained eighteen well-developed seeds, and from these an equal number of plants, of which ten are already in bloom”

Gregor Mendel

Letter VIII, July 3rd, 1870.
Letters to Carl Nägeli

“Gärtner by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed within limits beyond which they cannot change.
Although this opinion cannot be unconditionally accepted, we find on the other hand in Gartner's experiments a noteworthy confirmation of that supposition regarding variability of cultivated plants which has already been expressed.”

Gregor Mendel book Experiments in plant-hybridisation

Concluding paragraph
Experiments in plant-hybridisation (1865)

Change

“Of the experiments of previous years, those dealing with Matthiola annua and glabra, Zea, and Mirabilis were concluded last year. Their hybrids behave exactly like those of Pisum.”

Gregor Mendel

Darwin's statements concerning hybrids of the genera mentioned in The variation of animals and plants under domestication, based on reports of others, need to be corrected in many respects.
Letter VIII, July 3rd, 1870.
Here Mendel alludes to the now-discredit ideas of blending inheritance and pangenesis
Letters to Carl Nägeli